By CASEY NEILL
SUSAN Collier wasn’t immediately welcomed into the Rotary Club of Dandenong.
She was a 20-something-year-old woman trying to break into a group of older gentlemen and met some resistance.
“Now I feel like one of the fellas,” she said.
And on Sunday 12 July the group welcomed the 31-year-old as its president for the 12 months ahead – the youngest person to hold the position and only the second woman in the job.
The Dandenong North resident joined in 2010 because she’d grown up around her dad Alan’s Rotary involvement.
“Back then it was a really active club. Once a month we were out as a family doing something Rotary-related,” she said.
“I decided I wanted to be a part of it.
“One of the men actually said to me ‘why do you want to join? Why do you want to join a group of old men?’
“If I wasn’t so stubborn I probably would have given up a while ago.
“But I had one of the members come to me just before Christmas and say ‘Susan, I’ve got to say I was dead set against you when you were proposed’ then he said ‘now I wish we could clone 10 of you’.”
Ms Collier wants to use her term to bring in more young members.
“The key is for me to be out doing things,” she said.
“Younger people are not going to come to a meeting once a week and have dinner and go home.
“You have those social outlets already.
“It’s got to be hands-on, meaningful work in the community.”
City of Greater Dandenong has put together a list of possible projects and the club has made contact with the Sudanese community.
“I’d like to try and target some of the communities within Dandenong and see how we can help them, what they need from us,” Ms Collier said.
“Ideally our club should reflect our community.
“I’m hoping that by tapping into some of these groups and working alongside them that they get an understanding of what we’re about and want to get involved with us.”
Ms Collier is studying a bachelor of education with a major in special education but can still find time for Rotary.
“It used to be that you had to come every week. Now it’s more what you put in,” she said.
“If you’re not able to come to any meetings but you’re able to help out every second weekend if we’ve got something on, that’s what you do.
“Rotary is what you make it. Whatever you want your involvement to be is what you do and nothing beyond that.”
Aside from time, the $200 membership fee is another hurdle to recruiting new members.
“It is hard to ask people to pay to be a volunteer,” Ms Collier said.
“A lot of that goes to Rotary International to cover your insurance. A part of that as well goes to Rotary Foundation which is Rotary’s own charity.
“People are not going to pay to be a volunteer to do nothing. We’ve got to be active.”
She likes being part of an organisation that makes a difference in the world.
“And I get the chance to meet people that I would never meet,” she said.
“I can go to dinner on a Monday night and sit next to an undertaker and a solicitor.
“In my life I would never interact with those people.
“The bigger part of it is to be involved in something that makes a real difference.
“It’s pretty cool.”
Visit dandenong.starcommunity.com.au and pick up the 20 July Journal for more from the changeover.
